Creating a static front page for your blog

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64 responses on “Creating a static front page for your blog”

What you’re saying works in theory – but there’s one problem: you can’t delete the default Blog or Home page.

The default Blog or Home page remains displayed and you end up with a dead page (or 2 homepages). I can’t find a way to delete it or change it into a static page, since it’s not listed in the Pages view at all.

So what happens is something like this: http://diamondintheruff.wordpress.com – I would like the Blog (or in some themes, Home) page to not be displayed at all.
I set the About page to be the default page, and the Blog/Updates to host the posts. But how do I get rid of the default Blog page?

What do you mean by “disappear”? Your posts are deleted permanently when you try to define a static homepage?

I would guess what you mean is that your posts are not appearing anymore on your homepage. But that’s the whole point of doing this :-s You can still access your posts by simply clicking the “posts” page.

Like ‘prprofmv’, I too found this static homepage conundrum to be an irritating feature of wordpress.com. (After all, not all of us are into fiddling with CSS). However after a lot frustrations, I followed Michael Pick’s suggestions and read the help file.

Unlike ‘prprofmov’, having ‘translated’ the rather poor grammar of the entry, I found it worked perfectly. I’m using the ‘unsleepable’ template. I changed the home page to point to my welcome pag. Fine. Then, to avoid having a home and welcome page, I simply made my welcome a child of one of the other pages. It then disappears from the menu, leaving just the homepage. (Thank you Michael Pick!)

Whether it works so easily on all the templates themes(and it should)is another matter… 🙂

Hi, For some reason I can’t get my new wordpress installation to display a static front page. Have followed the above instructions but keep getting a “Error 404 – Not Found” displayed. I wonder if its because my permalink structure only displays postnames ie http://www.myblog.com/home and the home page is defaulting to only “www.myblog.com”

Hi,
I have WP 2.7.1 and when I click on the “Reading” tab the window that appears does not have an area to create a static page as shown in the video. So what do I do? I really need clear help.
Thanks,
Chris

Possibly off topic… I’m new to blogging but not to web design (used to html, css etc). I’ve set up my site (urbanh20.wordpress.com) to have a static homepage but can’t see how to get rid of a navigation lines in the main text area.

I’m very much at the practice stage before setting up a site for a history group.

Is there absolutely no way to make a static home page avoiding the 2 home page situation? I’m using the new vigilance theme and have created a static home page but as per kunuweb suggests, the only way to hide the second “Home” page is to make it a parent of another page. Seems a rather silly thing to have to do? Any suggestions or solutions? Thanks.

You can change your blog sub title (or tagline) from: Settings->General on your blog dashboard.
Not all themes supports changing the header – If the one you’re using does, you’ll find it under Appearance->Custom Header

I just found a solution: First, create a Dummy page and publish it as Visibility: Public. Then change the Parent attribute of the Home to fall under Dummy. Now edit the Dummy page again and make it Visibility: Private.

For those experiencing issues with missing the static page option in WordPress 2.7.1…NOTE: You must create a temporary page first, then go into your Admin>Reading options to create a static page. If this issue continues, you will need to backup your data and re-install WP.

We are currently working on additional advanced options (i.e. plugins, PHP code alterations, etc.) to accomplish the same effect for multiple blogs.

The sound was terrible. A word now and then. The video played somewhat the same way. I will return tomorrow. A great idea. Front page isa little trickly. I realize that my computer may be part of the problem. I tried to check it and could find nothing.

Sounds like you’re having streaming troubles – if you aren’t already, I’d recommend using the SD rather than HD mode. Alternatively you could download the video file directly from our Miro channel or your feed reader/podcatcher using our media RSS feed – hope that helps!

is there a way to still have the current blog posts still display as part of the page?
so have the static home page with its content at the top, and below that content have the blog posts appear as they would if the blog were still the home page. I’m doing some work on an inherited site so am trying to make changes to someone else’s initial work.
thanks.

This question would likely get a better, fuller response in the WordPress.org forums, where there are lots of active developers and volunteers able to walk you through changes and modifications needed for this type of customization. (I’m assuming you inherited a self-hosted blog here)

I want to create this type of blog for my website where vistors can leave a message ‘Leave a Reply’. Im using frontpage so if anyone of you kind people have a html code for creating this PLEASE send me the code.
Thanks very much

I found a sneaky solution to the self-hosted issue of duplicate home links in the menu on some themes. When creating the page for the home page as shown in the video, simply leave the title blank. Then when modifying the Reading settings, select that blank page (an empty spot will be in the pull down menu).

Jeff Bennett, you are a genius!! It’s both obvious and simple at the same time. I’ve just wasted about three hours of my life trying to remove the surplus ‘home’ page from the Vigilance theme when all I needed to do was remove the title from the ‘home’ page I’d created myself. Because they are wired to exactly the same link, anyone clicking ‘home’ is taken to the blank titled page… simplicity itself. It obviously took a perceptive mind to spot it. Cheers Jeff!

I have been racking my brains on how to do this, your video has made it so simple to understand. I really appreciate This I have put it on my blog under the tab FREE Training along side my other free stuff.
A Big Thanks
Alex Goddard

i accidentally solved the issue of having 2 home menu tabs… all i did was create a new page with a title i wanted on my front page static and set it as such and voila no 2 home menu tabs just 1 home tab that routes to my static page.

The way around this is to use the Pages widget. This way your pages in the widget also become Menu titles and the HOME page that comes with the theme is not shown but the Home page you made does. This also allows you to hide pages and when you create pages you can make them parents or give them parents which makes them a sub menu item.

Great video, Thanks But when I changed the posts to the blog page, my custom theme home page is also showing the blogs. How do I keep the current custom theme home page and just move the blogs to the new blog page?

really need help on this question: When I changed the posts to the blog page, my custom theme home page is also showing the blogs. How do I keep the current custom theme home page and just move the blogs to the new blog page?

Published

January 13, 2009

If you’d rather have your landing page display something other than your latest blog posts, WordPress makes that easy. This video walks you through the process of setting up separate blog and front pages